Jean's Musings
by Pantera Kedian
Summary: A character musing I did on Jean and why she would act the way she does, about Scott and Duncan as well as other things.


Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men Evolution, Jean, or any of the other people mentioned in here. Well, maybe Lauren. I'm not sure. I thought I'd heard somewhere that Jean had a sister, so I just sorta made up a name. Oh well.

Note: Okay. This is a character musing about Jean, from Jean's point of view. This is my opinion about what makes her tick. It came to mind when I started thinking (I muse about characters a lot. I'm a big "character motivation" lover) about Jean and the way she's been treating Scott in the latest episodes. It seemed strange, somehow. She had always struck me as a kind person, if a bit uninteresting compared to some others. And when I thought about it, it just clicked with something else that always bugged me about her character; namely how she's managed to do so many things on the show and be so good at all of them. Most people are talented at one, or maybe two things, but Jean seemed to have an endless line of hobbies. So, here's my answer.

Note again: Oh, as this was a musing about the character, I just sat down at the computer and let my rambling thoughts out on the keyboard. I tried to stay in character as to how she would think, but other than that it was flow of thought. So please excuse any grammar errors or other strangeness that is in here.

Wow, those were long notes. Okay, on with the story…thing.

***

            I don't know what it is about me. I know the things I've been doing are hurtful and wrong, but I just can't stop doing them. Hah. Until recently, I didn't even know I was doing them at all. Maybe I should explain. All my life I've been looked up to. Does that sound arrogant? I only wish it **was** only pride. But it's true. I was adorable when I was a baby, all bright blue eyes and rose-gold fluffy hair. I did well in school, for the things they taught weren't hard at all, or at least not for me. I've always been bright. And my parents...my parents were overachievers. My father constantly tells of how he worked his way through medical school, no matter how hard it was, and my mom brags that she sells more insurance than anyone else at the agency. They both consider their jobs to be the most challenging things in their lives, and it's a challenge that they have to live up to, if not surpass. Why should their daughters be any different? Oh, don't get me wrong. Lauren and I weren't ignored or anything like that. There is no horror story. I come from a very loving family. It's just a very high-pressure family. I was the oldest, so I always had to be a responsible example for Lauren; never slacking off, never 'hanging out' with "undesirables." I was her big sister and I looked out for her. And she idolized me. You could see it in her face every time I'd talk to her, or the rare times she convinced me to play a game with her. My parents loved it. Isn't it sweet, they said, that dear Jean is watching over her little sister. I never told them I used to go out so much just so I could get away from her. She was only two years younger than me, but it got so annoying having to be on that pedestal all the time. Unfortunately, the pedestal was a place that was going to get very familiar in the times ahead. 

Like I said, I was always good in school, and my strawberry blonde hair didn't turn muddy brown like my sister's did, or even stay blonde. It darkened into a fiery orange-red and became thick and lustrous. If anything, this made my parents even prouder. Isn't she a gem, they said. So smart, so pretty, so responsible and mature. Our little girl. I never told them I used to consider chopping it all off, or dyeing it purple, just so I wouldn't have to spend nearly an hour each morning combing it so it would shine just the way they liked it. If I didn't do that my mom would just sniff and say, "Well, Jeannie, dear. Had a late morning did you? That's okay. Just try not to do it too often, you hear? You can't always go to school looking like a scarecrow. What would people think?" And then I'd feel guilty for not living up to her expectations. I had to keep my grades up too. To do otherwise would be unthinkable. It would mean disappointing my parents, and I didn't want to do that. I loved them. My dad kept pushing extracurricular hobbies at me, one right after another, like he didn't know which one was best. I didn't want to let him down so I tried my best to get good at them, one right after another. Sculpting, drawing, cheerleading, gymnastics, soccer, public speaking... thing after thing after thing. It got so bad that I had to look around my room in the afternoon to see what gear was set neatly on my "activity" shelf so that I'd even know what I was supposed to be doing this week; what place to go to. But I loved my parents and wanted them to be proud of me, so I learned it all. My mom talked of law school or MIT as if invoking the names of the spirits, bringing luck to my future. I didn't tell her I don't want to be a lawyer, or whatever else she has in store for me. That would disappoint her. In truth, I don't know what I do want to do with my life, just that it wouldn't be anything nearly so complicated. 

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm an overachiever too. I think I inherited it from them, or at least learned it there. I look at a school problem or a function I promised I'd help with and I think, all right, now how can I make this not just good but downright awesome. I always try my hardest. But the sad thing is, I don't know how much of that is me and how much of it is just habit. Then, when I was fifteen a strange thing happened. My powers manifested. I suddenly was hearing my parents' encouraging thoughts as well as hearing them from their lips. I knew that Lauren had smoked pot last week in the girls' bathroom, just to try it, and had choked so on the smoke that she vowed never again to go near the stuff. (I never lectured her about that. Her own iron determination will keep her away from it more than any words from me will.) I got mad at my hairbrush on a particularly painful snarl and hurled it across the room, saw it was heading for the mirror and caught it. With my mind. It was weird. I was a little scared, but mostly what I felt was relief. Here was something that had gone wrong that was not my fault. Now I could relax a little without having to worry about my parent's becoming disappointed in me. I went to them and told them I was a mutant. I showed them what I could do. They were shocked and saddened, but told me they loved me just the same. I could tell that they meant it. And they didn't blame me. It wasn't poor "perfect" Jeannie's fault that she could move things with her mind. It was just an accident; a prank the universe had played on so sweet a girl. They didn't blame me! They still cared about me! I was in heaven.

Heaven lasted for about a day. Then Xavier showed up. He told my parents and I that I had a gift, not a curse, and that I could do great things with it. I could see my parents just eating it up. Little Jeannie's not doomed after all, they were thinking. She will still make us proud. And for one brief second I hated Xavier for showing up and ruining everything. But then he looked at me and assured me that everything was going to be all right…with his mind. He was a telepath too and was obviously reading my thoughts. I instantly felt ashamed. I'd always gone to lengths to be pleasant to people, even if I didn't really like them particularly, and the idea of being thoughtlessly rude to people shocked me. Now here I'd been rude to the Professor without even meaning to, because he heard it in my thoughts. I promised myself I'd be better in the future and that I'd try to see what he meant. He said I had a gift, yes, but he also said I had to learn to control it, so I wouldn't be an accidental danger to those around me. "Yes," my parents said. They could understand that. They didn't really think it would be a problem for me. I was always so good at everything. They jumped at the chance to send me to this Institute so that I could become "good at all my god given gifts." So, for their sake I agreed to try my best to learn. I didn't want to disappoint them, after all. And don't get me wrong. I liked my powers. I wanted to learn how to use them properly. So, in a way, I was excited to go too.

Once at Xavier's mansion I learned that I liked and respected him as well. He was a telepath and thus spent a lot of time teaching me how to control it; how to stop myself from having to hear everyone at once and pick out only the things I wanted to hear, observing the privacy of the person in everything else. He was like a mentor to me. No, he WAS a mentor to me, and I've grown to greatly respect him. But it was hard. Respecting him meant one more person that I had to please; someone else I had to live up to the expectations of. And they were high. He knew how bright and talented I was, how could he not when he spent so much time inside my skull? And he wanted me to "live up to my potential." Ack! I hate those words. I've heard them far, far too often. But, like I said, I respected him, so I tried my hardest to be good for him too. I worked diligently on my powers until I'm fairly controlled with them, although I know I'm far from all done, and I tried my hardest to do good in school, continuing in my father's tradition by taking up tons of after school activities; pottery, cheerleading, soccer, and others. It wasn't that hard for these were mostly hobbies I was practiced at anyway, but it was still difficult to do them all at once. 

And then there was Scott. You must understand. I've had friends before. Lots of them, in fact. I've always been popular. But I'd never had another teenager living in the same house as me, other than my sister. And she could hardly count as she looked up to me just as much as my parents did. Now here was someone who didn't, who just thought I was a girl and didn't expect me to do anything spectacular for him. It was like a breath of cool breeze, it was so refreshing. That's changed somewhat by now, I'm afraid, and it's my own stupid fault. I showed myself to be such an overachiever that now he expects me to be the responsible one with him, as does everybody else…but he's still not nearly as bad as the Professor or my parents are. At first I treated him the way I treated my friends at school, nice but not too close to them. I think they used to think I was too "perfect" to be really close to. But that changed with Scott. Probably because I did have to live with him. And back then it was just the grownups and the two of us. The other teenagers had yet to show up. He became someone to hang out with, someone to laugh with, and someone to talk to. I think I know him better than anyone else here does, and that's including the Professor, who's too polite to pry into people's minds without their consent. I do do that sometimes, peek where I'm not supposed to, I mean; more frequently than is really explainable, perhaps. But it's just such a relief. Here's something uniquely mine that I can use any way I want, without anyone putting rules on it. Oh, the Professor tries, but truly told, he really doesn't have any way of knowing whether I'm behaving or not as long as I don't do it right in front of him. But I'm getting off track. Scott. We became really close friends; the closest I've ever had in fact. He told me things about himself, secrets he wouldn't let anyone else know, and I did the same to him. Nothing about the pressure. That I still stubbornly wanted to deal with myself, and now that the others are here and I'm supposed to be responsible for them, it's too late to say anything without sounding as if I was whining about it. Oh well. At any rate, he may not know about that, but in every other respect he knows me better than anyone else in the world. He was always someone I could fret to, who could understand me. I think I half fell in love with him that summer, but was simply too dense to notice it. 

Then the others showed up. Not much to say about the others, really. Oh, don't get me wrong. They're nice and everything, and the mansion is so much livelier with more people in it; more young people like us, I mean. But in a way, I didn't like it so much, either. It's like, now we're one big family and once again I'm the "big sister" of the group. Everyone expects me to be one of the responsible ones; because I'm older, and because I've shown myself to be so "reliable" in the past. So now I'm back in the same old groove again, and I have not just the Professor to please and achieve for, but also all my peers as well. They're my friends and all, but that is an awful lot of pressure, and I'm just getting sick of it. 

I guess that's the reason I started acting this way. Like I said, I've always been very popular at school. Everyone seems to look up to me there, just as they do everywhere else. But recently I found a way to use it to my advantage. Not on purpose, of course. I would never do anything so mean on purpose, but everyone always hung off my every word and wanted to be with me. And then Duncan Matthews started paying me attention. I was flattered. After all, he is the captain of the football team, which, in this high school, puts him just about as high as you can get in the coolness scale. But at the same time, it didn't surprise me very much. After all, I'd worked hard for this image I'd achieved, and was perhaps just as popular as he was. Why shouldn't he pay me attention? Now, let me put something bluntly here. Duncan's a nice guy. Yeah, he has his share of male machoism, but then what guy doesn't? He's not nearly so bad as nearly every one of my friends seem to think he is. I like hanging around him. But love? No. I don't think so. Nice he might be, but he's really not very interesting to talk to for long periods of time. We don't have very much in common outside of a school setting, and he wants me to support him in everything, boost his image at school. That's annoying. But...but I didn't have a boyfriend, and he **was** nice and all, so I started going out with him.

Now, looking back on it, I can see what I was doing, but it simply didn't register at the time. I could see how Scott reacted on finding out I was dating Duncan; somehow I knew how he would even before I started doing it. And no, not by telepathy. I just know Scott well. I knew he liked me in a way that was, let's just say, more than friendship. Even if I hadn't been sure before, he made it more than apparent afterwards. I didn't want to hurt him. Are you kidding? Scott's my best friend! I never want to hurt him. But I wasn't so sure I wanted to start dating him, either. Everyone would expect it… "Oh look at Jean and Scott. Aren't they so perfect together?" Well, maybe I didn't want to do what everyone would expect! One more small way of rebelling, maybe. And, shameful as it is to say it, I rather enjoyed the way the two fought over me. Duncan would get all Neanderthal 'grunt, grunt, she's mine', which, as I said, got annoying very quickly, but was flattering all the same. And Scott would react in such a way...He would go to such lengths to get my attention...I don't know how to say it. It just made me feel important on my own right; made me feel empowered. They liked me for me, and were willing to fight over me. Both of them. I had control. That felt good. I can't tell you how good it felt. My whole life I've never had control over any part of it, and now I did. So I exploited it. Oh, I can see that now. Keep in mind; I wasn't trying to be mean to anyone. I didn't realize what I was doing. But if I made sure to tell Scott I was going over Duncan's, or dragged my "boyfriend" over to talk to my friends…it always made me feel good the way they'd glare at each other. 

Just this Christmas, I realized what I was doing. It was Rogue that caused the realization, so I suppose I should thank her. But I really don't want to. I knew she had a crush on Scott, of course. I didn't even have to read minds to figure it out. It's blaringly obvious. I always felt that that was cute. Isn't it adorable how the lonely Goth girl is crushing on the handsome popular guy? Sad, but cute. I wasn't worried. After all, it wasn't like Rogue was competition or anything. Scott would never go for a girl like her. But then, I watched as she gave her Christmas present to him and his whole face lighted up. I watched as she blushed and he heaped praise on her. And I realized that they were cute together too. And I hated her. Hated and glared at her with the green eyes of jealousy. And it didn't stop! For the rest of the day, those two hung out together, talked and laughed together, had a good time together. And the next morning, everyone left the mansion to go home for the holidays, _except for Scott and Rogue_. They had no homes to go to, so would be staying at the institute with the Professor. Together. Oh, that burned. I knew I was glaring at her as my ride pulled away from the front doors, knew and couldn't do anything about it. Couldn't stop myself. And for several days at home, as I tried to relax and enjoy the season with my family, my mind kept turning to the two left behind, wondering what they were doing together, what they'd do to wile away the time while I was gone. I nearly ruined Christmas for myself, worrying about it. Would I come back and find that that slut Rogue had stolen him away from me?

That thought was what woke me up. I suddenly grasped what a vicious cycle my brain had been going through, and forced myself to look at things frankly. How could she steal Scott away from me when he wasn't mine in the first place? I was dating Duncan. Hello! Remember that, Jean? Scott had as much right to date whomever he wanted as I did. I didn't own him. I'd given up any rights to his heart that I had once held. And besides, he and I were just friends. I wasn't interested in him in _that way_. So why was I so angry? I thought about how I'd been acting these last few weeks and then had to do a very hard thing. I had to face my conscience.

I'd been using them, both of them, I now saw. Using them just so that I could feel as if I were in control of my own life. That made me feel wretched. Who was I to do such a thing to them? Scott and Duncan are both nice people, and I didn't have a right to jerk them around like that. And Rogue...even as I write this I have to suppress another jab of jealousy. But it's not her fault. I have to keep that in mind. It's not her fault that I messed everything up so badly, and there's no reason she shouldn't talk to Scott. I'm just going to have to do something about him when I get home that's all. Somehow.

Because, now that I'm thinking about it I think I can get things straight in my head. About my love life, or whatever you want to call it. Duncan's nice and I don't mind having him as a friend. But I **am not in love with him**. Anyone who annoys me that much on a daily basis would be absolutely no good in a romance, as was clearly obvious if only I had been smart enough to realize it. And Scott...I'm still not sure how I feel for him. I don't know if its love or not. If you'd asked me a few days ago I would have said it certainly was not. But that was a few days ago. After all, if it was just friendship, then I should be happy for him and Rogue, shouldn't I? So maybe it is love. I think...I think I wouldn't mind dating him, even if we are the "cute couple." He's good and kind and funny, and knows me better than anyone else in the world. And I've been awful to him. So hear me now, although I know you will never read this. Scott, I am **so** sorry for that. I hope it isn't too late to make it up to you. That it's not too late to get you back. Because, despite the way I've been acting, I do care. Really.

Okay, so what do you think? Think I got the character right, or do you disagree with me? I'd love to hear any opinions or alternate suggestions you have. Go ahead and review. Tell me.


End file.
